Archive for the ‘Motorsports’ Category

That’s a heck of a deal! Chris Smith, Carroll Smith’s son and the person managing the book business now since Carroll Passed 10 years ago, has recently had quite an ordeal. But he made it through, and Engineer To Win is back on the shelves!

To celebrate the re-release and having all books back in stock, Chris has dropped the price to an all-time low $89.95 for Tune To Win, Drive To Win, Prepare To Win, Engineer To Win, and Carroll Smith’s Engineer In Your Pocket.

This is the entire race car engineering library Carroll authored after his stellar racing career, from engineering the GT40s that won Le Mans, to winning Indy, Formula One, and everything in between.

Get your books now before the price goes up!

Posted in Motorsports, Partners, Props | Comments Off on CarrollSmith.com Now Selling Carroll’s Complete Set for $89.95!

Allen Berg, former Formula One racer and chief of Allen Berg Racing Schools operating in Fontana, CA, Canada, and now Willow Springs, CA, is introducing a new program that joins his fabulous Formula Cars with FastLine Racing’s Scions. FastLine is famous for training the celebrities that race at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach’s Pro/Celebrity race – and these are the same cars used for the training.
The Scions are okay cars to learn some racing with – manual shift, closed-cockpit and of course front-wheel drive. They are full-blown race cars used for racing, with roll cages, 5-point harnesses, and all of the things needed to make them safe and competitive in a racing environment.

Some people dream about racing a historic Formula One car flat out. A select, lucky few others do it. One such gent is American Chris Locke, a Lotusophile from Northern California.
Chris is a busy attorney trying to make the world right, but in his spare time he uses what his hard work affords him to enjoy his historic Lotus race cars. Most recently, Chris headed to the Goodwood Festival of Speed, a motorhead mecca in England, and followed his blasts up the hill with a trip to Silverstone to exercise his ex-Andretti Lotus 77 in a support race for the FIA Formula One World Championship British Grand Prix.

Check out Chris’ cars and exploits at CheckeredPastRacing.com, a site he had made up so his family and anyone else can follow along with his adventures.

Good on ya and well done racing, Chris!

Keep an eye out for another article in the coming weeks about Locke’s experience helping in the filming of Rush.

There is great news for Formula Car racers and enthusiasts in Southern California. Allen Berg, ex-Formula One pilot, has brought advanced formula car training straight to Los Angeles at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.

Before, Los Angelenos had to go to Infineon Raceway or Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca to take part in an advanced racing course. Now Allen Berg offers an even higher quality of training through Allen Berg Racing Schools right here in LA, plus some perks.

To start, Allen’s cars are purpose built race cars, just as any other school’s. But far better yet, they’re all outfitted with full data telemetry and cameras. This means instead of depending on a students limited understanding, every issue of time lost can be seen objectively in black and white for immediate feedback. There is no greater tool for improvement. Couple the best technical data available for your driving with expert instruction from an ex-F1 driver, and you’ll be shaving chunks off your time.

This kind if experience can and does translate to any and every kind of competitive tarmac driving, from racing historic and semi-historic Grand Prix, Indy, and F5000 and Formula Vee cars to non-formula FIA, GTP, Can-Am, and even race-prepped street cars for autocross and rally.

Even better, Allen allows graduates of his programs to inexpensively rent time in his cars at the track to continue improving. It makes for a fantastic pre-season refresher, and you get the same data and analysis as you do during school.

We welcome Allen and his racing school to Los Angeles! What a fantastic addition to the racing regimen for competitive drivers and those seeking more safety through competence.

Chris Locke of Checkered Past Racing has informed fans through his website, www.CheckeredPastRacing.com, that this year’s racing schedule will be nearly as ambitious as the Professional Formula One calendar, giving fans of the awesome Lotus 76 the opportunity to see the car in person from the middle of March at Laguna Seca all the way until the end of November at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, TX if the US Grand Prix is to happen there this year.

Fans of the Lotus 76 should be able to see the car… not in person, but greatly enlarged… sometime next year.

Chris’ stable of Loti now has an interloper in the form of a Formula 2 Chevron B39. Chris allowed the car to be campaigned last year its original driver Indycar racer Lyn St. James to the great delight of racing fans everywhere. Chris intends to use the car himself this year, not to the great delight of Lyn St. James. She may get another go if Chris gets too busy with his 76, or with Classic Team Lotus’ incredible Lotus 79.

A few highlights of the schedule include the normal races in Monterey and Napa, but also Monaco (pending acceptance), Portland, Limerock, both Goodwoods, and as mentioned before, perhaps the United States Grand Prix, if that event comes to pass.

UPDATE: As of 2/17/12, there will no longer be a track event at the Ford Cobra Shelby Reunion. There will be an excellent show and banquet to follow. For more information, see Museum.NHRA.com.

If you’ve been dying to get your Mustang Cobra R-Model out and on to a “real” track, now you have the chance to do it.

We’re not talking about trucking it all the way out to the desert, either. We’re talking Pomona’s famous and historic road course at the Pomona Fairplex, adjacent to the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum, the folks behind the Ford Cobra Shelby Reunion celebrating 50 years of Ford Cobras. The event takes place April 19-21, 2012.

Two real King Cobras, winning cars from the 60’s in the LA Times Grand Prix at Riverside and Monterey Pacific Grand Prix, have confirmed entry to the event. Talk about getting your car alongside some history!

As such, not just any yahoo will be allowed. Organizers will break drivers and cars into three run groups to insure safety and that everyone has an enjoyable experience. You must have a Ford, Cobra, or Shelby in order to participate. Hot Track time until February 28th is $250, with packages for including your family and friends in the fun and banquets to go along with the event.

You will be allowed to drive at your own safe pace. You will be required to wear a helmet. This is the real deal! Nobody will be allowed to endanger other drivers with unsafe driving (as determined by the Clerk of the Course); participants seen in any way as endangering others will be removed from the event immediately without refund.

This is your chance to get that hangar queen out and see how she handles on a road course – a real road course where Cobras and Shelby’s and of course, Fords, have been racing as far back as California has racing history. Don’t miss your chance to be an exciting part of this thrilling event – chances to race your pony car at anywhere DO NOT COME AROUND OFTEN – much less the famous and historic Pomona Circuit!

For more information and to register, please contact the NHRA Museum. And get ready to let your baby loose doing what she was intended to do!

The Wally Parks NHRA Museum is hosting the 50th Anniversary of the Ford Motor Company / Carroll Shelby partnership that marked absolute dominance in racing and gave generations of Americans a whole new meaning to the term ‘Cobra’.

Carroll Shelby found a British A/C that he thought looked alright, put the ultra-powerful, ultra-reliable small-block Ford motor in it and the rest of the competition on the track simply became history. The birth of the Ford / Shelby Cobra marked a swift and painful death for anything else on wheels in the 60’s. The power-to-weight ratio was simply unstoppable.

2012 is upon us, and the celebration of that racing Armageddon will be accompanied by a massive and dangerous Cobra infestation at the Pomona Fairplex. Spirited “demonstrations” of Cobras and Shelbys around the historic Pomona circuit will accompany a massive gathering of the finest examples on the West Coast and in the World.

It’s a wonderful thing to see history preserved in museums – it’s a whole other to see these Snakes in motion (in their natural habitat), to hear it pound your ears and to feel the vibration of small block Ford motors in chorus beat at your feet.

If you’re an owner of a Shelby, you may apply to include your car in the festivities by going to Museum.NHRA.com and if you’re a wannabe owner of a Shelby, you can come and feast your eyes and ears and heart as the Museum brings some of the most exciting examples of its history to life.

In October 1971 Sir Jackie Stewart won the FIA World Driver’s Championship, Tyrrell won the World Constructor’s Championship

American John Delane celebrates his first overall Historic Formula One Championship

with Ford engines, and Francois Cevert won his only Grand Prix in Tyrrell 002. It is October 2011 and American John Delane has put the Tyrrell-Ford name back in the headlines by winning the overall FIA Historic Formula One Championship in Tyrrell 002 by coming 3rd overall (1st in class) in Race 1 of the season finale Jarama, Spain. It is also the 50th anniversary of Phil Hill’s Formula One World Championship, the first for an American driver.

13th FIA Championship for Delane

From Redondo Beach, California, Delane is among the most successful of historic racing’s FIA Driver Champions, competing Historic Formula One (HFO) in Ford-Cosworth powered Tyrrell Formula One racing cars and the Lurani Trophy for Formula Juniors in a Ford-powered Lotus 18. In years past, he has competed HFO in Tyrrell 001 (which belongs to the late Ken Tyrrell’s family), and this year he campaigned his own 1971 Tyrrell chassis 002.

Delane has now accrued 7 FIA Class ‘A’ HFO Championships in Tyrrell 002 (2002 – ’07 and ’10) and now for the first time, the overall 2011 Historic Formula One Championship. John Delane also locked up his third overall FIA Lurani Trophy (in addition to 2 Class ‘C’ Luranis) for Formula Juniors (the late 1950’s equivalent of today’s GP2 racing series) in Algarve, Portugal last weekend bringing his FIA Championship total to 13. It is the first time an American has won the overall Historic Formula One Championship and the first time anyone has won two overall FIA historic Championships in the same year.

Much of Delane’s success can be attributed to the consistency of his cars’ performance provided by the excellent preparation of Hall & Hall of Lincolnshire, England. They often bring Delane’s original Tyrrell transporter to the historic racing events – it still hauls the cars just as it did forty years ago. Hall & Hall’s prep work allows Delane to run his cars hard. Delane’s 1959 Lotus 18 Formula Junior is powered by an 1100cc Ford-Cosworth 105E motor. In Historic Formula One, Delane’s Tyrrells are powered by the venerable 500bhp long-stroke 3.0 liter Ford-Cosworth DFV, just as in 1971.

www.CheckeredPastRacing.com‘s Chris Locke is a part of Lotus Formula One History. Three JPS Team Lotus type 79s have taken to the track together, for the first time ever.

At Snetterton on Wednesday 4th May 2011, 33 years after winning the 1978 Formula One World Championship, Classic Team Lotus ran three JPS type 79s; chassis 1, 2 and 3. This never happened in period.

On behalf of American owner Paul Rego, the Team Principal of Regogo Racing based in Dallas, Classic Team Lotus has undertaken a complete restoration of chassis 1, which was driven by Mario Andretti in testing and practice throughout the 1978 season, then raced by Jean-Pierre Jarier in the US GP at Watkins Glen.

Regogo Racing Works driver Doc Bundy was at the wheel for testing prior to airfreight back to the States in time for the car to be raced in the Legends of Motorsport event at the Barber Raceway on the 22nd May.

Chassis 2 and 3 are part of the Classic Team Lotus Works Collection. Chris Locke, as Patron of chassis 2, contributed to its restoration and the car is fitted with his engine. Chris Dinnage, Team Manager of Classic Team Lotus, was at the wheel.

Chassis 3 was driven by Clive Chapman, son of Lotus founder Colin Chapman.

Classic Team Lotus and Regogo Racing were joined by a number of the 1978 Championship winning team, including designer Martin Ogilvie and Chief Mechanic Eddie Dennis.

The Team Lotus type 79 dominated the 1978 World Championship to such an extent that the team would ‘sandbag’ their cars in qualifying so that their advantage did not appear too great. The shape of the underside of the car in relation to the track surface created a venturi profile which, together with the all important sliding side skirts acting as seals, created a lot of downforce for relatively little drag. Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson finished first and second on four occasions, at a time when such a result was rare.

In chassis 2 Mario won the Belgian GP and Ronnie won the Austrian GP. In chassis 3 Mario won the Spanish, French and German GPs. (Mario won the Dutch GP in chassis 4, the other JPS type 79, but this car was unable to attend.)

The type 79 has topped two polls of ‘Most Beautiful F1 Car Ever’ and was chosen as the best technical design in a survey of F1 designers.

As drag racing in the United States gets kicked off this weekend in it’s spiritual home of Pomona, California, thousands will come to see 10,000 horsepower Top Fuel Dragsters duel to over 300 miles per hour over an 1/8th mile straight. It is an ear-smashing, spine-rollicking phenomena, among the most spectacular in the world of motorsports and indeed of industrial capacity.

But a few of those spectators might forget to take the journey around the corner to the museum, which will be open for business and displaying the roots of that spectacle – where it all started and the journey that brought the sport where it is. Inside the museum, there are Funny Cars (1000 bhp+ monsters that look a little bit more like the cars we drive every day than the rocketship-esque Top Fuel Dragsters), land speed record breakers, hot rods, and amazing pieces of technical and artistic marvel from throughout Pomona’s, California’s, and the World’s collective search for speed and power.

For serious gearheads, a trip to the museum could take an hour or more – but for the more casual spectator, you can rush through and get a flavor in 15 – 30 minutes. The museum gift shop has truly unique apparel and models that are difficult to find anywhere else – and make for the best souvenirs of the weekend.

So while you’re in awe of the cars racing down the dragstrip this year and you decide your ears and body just need a break, take respite in the phenomenal Wally Parks Motorsports Museum – any stop every good gearhead needs to make.